The attorney general responded by launching a national directorate to oversee cases affecting women, children, adolescents, and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. He said the directorate would create criteria, strategies and guidelines to improve investigations.

Since it was set up, the number of femicides – killings of a woman or girl by a man because of their gender – in the country has decreased by 19%, with 383 reported cases in the last year.

In 2017, the country also opened a new court to deal specifically with gender-based crimes such as femicide and revenge porn.

Silvia said: “The decrease in femicides may be due in part to the implementation of measures such as specific structures and monitoring of the problem. However, the increase of disappearances may also suggest a mutation of femicide rather than a reduction.”

She added that one of the main problems is impunity and the failure of police and authorities to secure convictions.

She said profound change is still needed, including “real and effective investment for the full exercise of all women’s human rights and the eradication of impunity and tolerance of violence in all its forms.”

The UN has described Latin America as the most violent region in the world for women outside of conflict. In 2017 a woman was killed approximately every 18 hours in El Salvador, data from the Institute of Legal Medicine showed.

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